Democracy fails...

[mralstoner]

Living in a democracy sounds fab, until you let in lots of people who have lots of kids and they all have different ideas to you....

Can you tweak democracy, so that the 'invited in' majority don't get their way on laws and things?

Democracy is increasingly looking like a failed model. So, there's definitely some tweaking or major surgery required.

China is laughing its ass off. The West traded with China with the expectation that it would liberalise/democratise. Now their favourite adjective of the West is "miserable". Hard to argue.

The answer is probably not to look for a model. That's the wrong approach. It puts the cart before the horse.

The requirement of any sane civilisation is an educated population. Educated people will always find a way, with or without the right model of governance.

If you think of your population as school children, then you'll know they're in need of structured and comprehensive guidance. Good propaganda, if you like.

You reap what you sow, and if you don't feed the people's minds with good ideas, bad ideas (or no ideas) will fill the vacuum.

If you want to be practical, in the here and now, then something like an immigration pause might be good e.g. the USA drastically cut immigration after WWI and it apparently fostered assimilation.

But if you have an overwhelming foreign demographic (e.g. Muslims in Europe, Hispanics in USA, Asians in Australia) then your goose is probably cooked. They will probably act with a tribal mind, and there's not much you can do about it, except to start a secession movement or something like that.

Probably what you want to foster right now is the mindset of independence (economic, cultural, security, etc) i.e. preparing your like-minded people for survival for when/if the West collapses or balkanises.

[Smaug]

I've come to a conclusion that there has pratically never been such a thing as true democracy throughout the history. The only exceptions may have been the Republic of Athenes and the medieval City-states or Free Cities. However it must be noted that in these cities there was no such thing as equal voting. There was an economical census. These were small enough societies to actually maintain the legitimacy. In larger societies money take over. And it's a rule. The only difference is how well this fact is disguised. But even so there may be positive aspects since this kind of regime sometimes lowers social tension and may solve some problems on a low level. By the way, you may be surprised but the USSR was a democratic state on certain level. This took place after the death of Joseph Stalin. While all the high-level decisions were made exclusively by the Party on the low level of self-governing there was a mechanism of people's deputies that actually worked through a democratic procedure. Of course you had smaller chances to be elected without being in the Party but by then becoming a member of the Party in most cases was a formality if you weren't a known 'dissedent'. This became even easier in 1970's.
Anyway a useful thing is not to fool yourself and understand that equal-rights Democracy on a large scale is in fact a utopia. Just like Communism. And in real world it's economical considerations that prevail. For your vote to really matter you have to have something to back it up with. Money, public support (which may be bought with money), social status (which displays your input into the society in a non-financial way and can be acheived through non-equal voting) or else. The more backup you have the more your voice matters no matter what ways are used to please the laymen. Laws of Nature in action.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

[quote='BrianSoddingBoru4' pid='898975' dateline='1426458744']
So, you want a democracy that is filled only with people like yourself, and the people with '...different ideas to you...' have no say in how things work?
/quote]


No, absolutely not! See you can get things wrong.

I want the most sensible ideas to rise against the most populous !
How are we going to do that?

Of course that's what you want - you've said it twice now: You want to limit the political freedom of people who are different from yourself.

psst, for the record - as a non-Muslim living in the UK, you ARE among the most populous.

Boru

[Anomalocaris]

Democracies and democratic republics, or any form government for that matter, are only as good as the people who comprise them. If the people of nation are immoral, then they will elect immoral people. I'd rather live under a benevolent dictator than in a corrupt democracy.

That's because you are deluded enought to believe a no good layabout failed carpenter somehow came back to life to make a all powerful dictator with the Ultimate in benevolence.

[Chad32]

Democracies and democratic republics, or any form government for that matter, are only as good as the people who comprise them. If the people of nation are immoral, then they will elect immoral people. I'd rather live under a benevolent dictator than in a corrupt democracy.

Except that dictators are as likely to be corrupt as anyone. Especially when you deify them like the Kim Jongs of North Korea. Having one guy at the top that is in charge of everyone doesn't work for everyone else. That's a big reason why most people don't like Yahweh.

[Minimalist]

Leave the US out of this discussion. We are a democracy in name only.

[Anomalocaris]

Leave the US out of this discussion. We are a democracy in name only.

How many "democracies" are truly democratic? And how many authoritarian or dictatorships are truly so dictatorial that the people really have no voice at all their government?

[FatAndFaithless]

Leave the US out of this discussion. We are a democracy in name only.

How many "democracies" are truly democratic?

From what I hear about the place from its official texts, North Korea sounds pretty perfect.

[JuliaL]

Democracies and democratic republics, or any form government for that matter, are only as good as the people who comprise them. If the people of nation are immoral, then they will elect immoral people. I'd rather live under a benevolent dictator than in a corrupt democracy.

Except that dictators are as likely to be corrupt as anyone. Especially when you deify them like the Kim Jongs of North Korea. Having one guy at the top that is in charge of everyone doesn't work for everyone else. That's a big reason why most people don't like Yahweh.

Hence insistence on the specification "benevolent."
These are hard to come by. A despot like Lee Kuan Yew (now dead) is hard to find and just as hard to find a successor for.
So Lek accepts a perfect benign dictator. One that is perfect because it is imaginary, the only place where perfection exists.
Personally, I prefer Havelock Vetinary, patrician of Ankh-Morpork.

Several attempts have been made on Vetinari's life or position; strangely enough, he seems to be involved in most of them.

[Anomalocaris]

How many "democracies" are truly democratic?

From what I hear about the place from its official texts, North Korea sounds pretty perfect.

Yeah, government of the Kim, for the Kim, by the Kim. Everyone else has permission to become rather scrawny fertilizer should they die before Kim can arouse himself to kill them.